Mother of 4 Halts Back Pain, Earns Vibrant Lifestyle

Dealing with back pain while aging can present significant challenges, impacting one’s quality of life and making even simple tasks feel paralyzing. 

Sarah Debski started down that road, but she was not going to let it burden her for long, so she came to PowerStrength.

“My main reason for starting was because I was having such chronic low back pain,” Sarah said. “It had gotten bad over the last few years and I had gone to physical therapy, got an MRI, went to a chiropractor, tried all sorts of things. I just said to my husband one day I know what I want for Christmas, I want a trial membership to PowerStrength because our son was an athlete here at the time so I knew how good they were and everything that they did.

“I would say it was maybe a month and I already noticed a huge difference in my pain and how much working out, strengthening, and even the exercises like stretching in the beginning really helped things. My main goal was to take care of my back pain and it’s done that, and now I don’t want to leave because I don’t want the back pain to come back, and I just like it here so much.”

Sarah has 4 kids, ranging in age from 10-18 years old. To be the mom that she wanted to be, she needed to be active. Her back pain was overwhelming, she felt powerless, Sarah had no choice but to take action. 

“At the time that I started here I was in pain 24-7. I woke up with it, I went to bed with it, and I was desperate. Nobody should have to be in pain like that, but I felt like if this is how I am in my late 30’s, I need to get it under control now because I don’t want to deal with this for the rest of my life. Now compared to then, I would say it is 100 times better, I’m way more active, I do a lot more with my kids, I can actually do stuff that I wasn’t able to do because of the back pain. I would push through it, but now it’s just not even an issue, definitely way better. Plus it has helped coming here, getting stronger, gaining more and more muscle, it has helped my health just overall. I just feel better, everything else just kind of fell into place.”

ONE-ON-ONE ATTENTION

The one-on-one attention that Sarah received in PowerStrength’s small group personal training was just what the doctor ordered. Working in groups of no more than six people in the Over 40 personal training program, Sarah conquered her nemesis.

“I knew that I wanted to come here versus going to a different gym because I knew that they kept it smaller (groups), but they fine tune it even more within the group,” Sarah said. “They really tailor it to each individual person at the same time. Somebody is going to be lifting way more weight than somebody else just because that is where they’re at, you can do the same lift with different weights.

“I love that one-on-one aspect of it where I don’t feel like I can’t say something or I can’t say ‘hey can you help me with this.’ They’ve got the time to do that because there are not 20 other people in the gym at the same time, I wouldn’t give that up to go anywhere else. I was going to need that small group more one-on-one attention because I had no idea what I was doing coming into it, so that was huge for me.”

The power of community and accountability have proven to lead member-after-member to success at PowerStrength. Being around other like-minded individuals has lifted Sarah to new heights in her fitness. 

“I feel like I know everybody here, I feel like there is no judgment whether you’ve been here for 3 months or 6 years,” Sarah said. “We all walk in and we are headed towards the same goal and it’s not daunting, it’s not scary, I think everybody is just welcoming and I hope everybody feels that when they come here because I tell people that. The smaller session sizes, the smaller groups, they definitely pay attention to detail, they know what they’re doing and they and they want to take care of every member they have here.”     

Even after more than 2 years at PowerStrength, the trainers are always communicating directly with Sarah and fine-tuning her program to make sure she is getting the most out of every session and continuously progressing. Sarah has to always monitor her body, training, and recovery to keep her debilitating pain from returning completely, it plagues her far less frequently than it did prior to coming to PowerStrength.

In fact, the only time the back pain returns is when she takes some time off from her training sessions. 

“They are great here, it is in my file, so to speak,” Sarah said. “The coaches will ask how my back is today and how I’m doing with that so they make sure that they don’t have me overdue it, – make sure I’m not doing lifting that is going to aggravate it. It hasn’t taken it away completely, but the time I notice it is when I’m on vacation for a week and I haven’t been (at PowerStrength), to be honest, that is the time that I notice it the most, it starts to kind of creep back in.”

ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS

Sarah came to PowerStrength to eradicate her back pain, and she has found success. Along the way, she has also stumbled upon more reasons to train consistently, she is now living a lifestyle that she enjoys because of how good she feels.

“Some people want to workout to lose weight, some people want to work out because they have health problems that they need to fix, I realized that building muscle was my main goal, that’s what I wanted to do. With the (member) challenges that they have you do where they have you really focus on your diet and cutting out all the junk and focusing on your movement and activity when you are not here, those help me get to that point too, to realizing how important that stuff is and those are things you always know are important, we just don’t do them like we should.”

“Coming (to PowerStrength) helped me really focus on the lifestyle that I want and it’s not hard. It’s not hard to be here, it’s not hard to come here and workout, it’s not hard to do those things outside of the gym because I realized that this is the lifestyle that I want, so it’s just fun for me and something I want to keep working on everyday.”

PowerStrength always takes a holistic approach to building stronger, healthier, and more energized people. Nutrition, hydration, and sleep are important factors in training and taught right along with the exercises that take place in the facility. Supplements play a pivotal role in achieving optimal results during training by providing essential nutrients, supporting muscle recovery, and enhancing. PowerStrength offers a wide range of supplements in all 4 PowerStrength locations around West Michigan.

“The coaches here definitely made me realize the things that have to go along with the lifting,” Sarah said.

“You can’t just come in and lift weights and not support your muscle growth and strength afterwards – your recovery. I think I was working out here for over a year and a half and wasn’t seeing the results I wanted until I realized I needed to start taking some of those supplements and focus on my nutrition, because they say you can’t outwork a bad diet, and it’s true. There were a couple times where I sat down with the coaches to kind of go over that nutrition piece and the supplements and they are always asking me if I need anything else, do I need more, is there something else I want to try, am I getting the results I want. The fact that they have those here just makes it even more convenient and easier, otherwise I’m just one of those people where if I have to take it into my own hands, I may not necessarily do it, but since they are here to help me with that, then it is a lot easier for me.”

PREVAILING OVER PAIN

Sarah has improved her overall quality of life by coming to PowerStrength. She started to eliminate back pain, and she is staying because she has realized that there are more goals out there that she wants to achieve.

“I definitely didn’t think I was going to come here and be here this long, I thought I would get my pain under control if it was even going to help me at all, and then I would kind of take what I learned and move on, over 2 years later and I’m still here,” Sarah said. “I would say to anybody that is having pain, whether it is you back or anywhere else, try taking care of your body and getting to the root of the problem first. I had doctors suggest cortisone shots and I didn’t want to mask it, I wanted to fix it. Strengthening your body and taking care of your nutrition and things like that should be number 1, and I think they really helped me with that here, so I would refer anybody to come here.”

READY FOR A STRONGER, HEALTHIER, MORE ACTIVE LIFESTYLE? 

Men and Women over 40 seeking a stronger, more energized lifestyle can join the personal training programs at PowerStrength. No previous workout experience is required as each program is customized to the fitness and ability level of each individual.

Multiple small group and private sessions are offered in the early morning, mid-morning, late afternoon, and evening.

Click HERE to learn more program details and schedule your risk-free consultation.